What would you take out to make room for Path?Originally Posted by FZA
Because life total is not a typical resource for early cards, Swords to Plowshares usually keeps tempo parity, but Path to Exile can add tempo for the opponent. Between turns 2 to 5, in almost all matchups, the land created by Path can accelerate their ability to cast spells.
Some of the matchups that, in prior months, seemed favorable to Path to Exile have now included answers to Path/Blood Moon: Eldrazi lists now include a singleton Wastes, and Shardless usually has single basic Forest and Swamp. (The latter doing so deliberately to fetch for Abrupt Decay colors).
Ruination/From the Ashes has been discussed at length (usually in context of Blood Moon or Back to Basics):
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ontrol/page498
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ontrol/page491
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ontrol/page485
Essentially the conclusion is that Miracles should utilize its cantrips to find answers to the board instead of attempting a lockout by attacking mana. The thought being: our deck generally has more answers--and access to answers--than their deck has threats.
The value accumulated by attacking their mana--either via From the Ashes/Ruination/Blood Moon--has a cost of some tempo; however this tempo is usually enough for the opponents to win in the matchups where we would bring in these cards.
As far as Shardless, specifically: the correct strategic angle is usually to stabilize on board with a Monastery Mentor AND using the sideboard to fight over the Ancestral Visions (or Jace or other refueling card). Monastery Mentor can provide card advantage by creating an army that will stick around even if it's removed with an Abrupt Decay. Miracles usually pulls ahead when it can retain card parity either via 1-for-1 removal or counterspells, but struggles when beaten by card advantage; having red blast effects (and Flusterstorms) to fight over the Ancestral Visions allow its ability to accumulate value with Top and draw steps to win.
I played two Ruination in my SB last night, they were very good vs Shardless as expected and won me the match (we went to time actually but my opponent nicely conceded as I was ahead by a reasonable amount g3). I dodged all the lands players unfortunately as I was looking forward to trying it out there. The other matches were vs UW Delver w/Myth Realized (2-0), UR Delver w/Bedlam Reveler (2-0) and Elves (1-2) which was totally on me, I won game one and punted G2 then mulled to 5 g3 and couldn't find enough lands.
I'm very happy with them, especially in theory for the Lands matchup and will continue to test them. Blood Moon is largely ineffective these days as Lands has Grips and BGx has Decays and fetches basics, Ruination is brutal in both of these scenarios. The tempo lost vs Shardless is quickly gained back since they can't cast spells for a few turns at least, usually longer.
For reference this is the list I played and SBing vs Shardless.
-4 Counterbalance
-2 Force of Will
-2 Swords to Plowshares
+1 Mountain
+2 Ruination
+3 Pyroblast
+2 Vendilion Vlique
3 Monastery Mentor
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Counterbalance
4 Ponder
4 Terminus
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Predict
2 Counterspell
1 Spell Snare
1 Wear//Tear
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
SB:
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Flusterstorm
3 Pyroblast
2 Ruination
1 Mountain
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Containment Priest
2 Wear//Tear
I have played a PtE in my sideboard a few weeks ago to have additional spot removal for delver decks. Overall its quite good, but I felt I could use my SB space more efficiently. Also, a lot of decks where you would want pte run some amount of basic lands, making it a little awkward.
Envoyé de mon SM-A500FU en utilisant Tapatalk
Have you had the opportunity to collect any further data and/or test any other changes in internal playtesting? Specifically, have you changed any amount of any of the cards?
I haven't had the opportunity to test it at length (I've still been trying to improve my tactics in general, but I've been using the original Predict list), but I was considering running your list with a 3 Counterbalance/2 Counterspell split. The idea being: Mentor can be deployed a little more aggressively (which is to say: 5 lands/turn 5), and leaving up Counterspell mana can protect it in a certain way that a blind Counterbalance couldn't.
I am no longer playing the 3 CB 3 CS list, I'm focusing on my 4 Mentor list and have been testing it thoroughly. Having collected lots of data, it's working out exactly as I expected and the experiment has proven to be very fruitful. I'd strongly recommend giving it a shot.
Miracles is drawing a lot of hate in the other side of the forums.
People dislike Miracles, the sky is blue and pigs still can't fly.Miracles is drawing a lot of hate in the other side of the forums.
Duel top 8 report.
SCG Columbus Legacy Classic Top 4
This is the list I played http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...?DeckID=105627
I’m not sure how I feel about only 3 md counterbalance but it’s honestly been fine. As for the board, I re-added the Containment Priest and 3rd wear//tear. The priest came in to hedge a little more against rando graveyard and vial decks. The 3rd wear could be sketch, but I added it to help my chalice of the void matchups. I’ve been something like 30-40/60-70 vs eldrazi lifetime and wanted to be able to get out from under chalice. I’m considering playing a second Councils Judgement over the third wear//tear but I don’t think it matters too much. I’m kinda considering playing a copy of Supreme Verdict in that slot but that card seems so hard to cast right now.
Tbh I’ve been focusing more on technical play over nitpicking list specifics that will give me like a 5% edge in an arbitrary matchup as opposed to just knowing a matchup inside and out.
If anyone wants to discuss anything in depth feel free to ask. Inb4: yes I know that manabase is really awkward. No, it hasn’t made a huge difference. I tend to fetch into basics in most of my game 1’s and not having the 3rd tundra hasn’t really come to bite me yet. The basic mountain has been interesting I guess.
Anyway,
Round 1: Dredge: 1-0
Game 1:My opponent mulled to 5 and literally did nothing. I did see enough info to board properly.
Game 2: My opponent keeps his 7 and I mull to 6. He proceeds to go T1 Cabal therapy naming Sensei’s top(misses) and sees my hand of Swords, Snapcaster, Clique, Ponder, Land Land. He then turn 2 therapies my clique and then turn 3 therapies naming “Path to exile”. This was really awkward, I glanced at his notes and saw that he had written path instead of swords which seems like an honest mistake. I assume my opponent mostly plays Modern and my Swords are Spanish, duel deck copies. Though, I did cast at least one copy against him game 1 and clearly stated “Swords”. Regardless, my opponent kept a hand with 0 dredgers and didn’t actually dredge until after he went Faithless Looting->Faithless Looting-> LED-> Looting->LED-> Looting. At which point he hit a dakmor salvage but was super dead on board to Mentor, tokens and snapcaster.
Round 2: Goblins: 2-0
Game 1: I mull to 6, my opponent keeps 7. He plays a turn 1 lacky which I insta kill. He then does nothing for a couple turns. The rest of the game followed suit, he’d play a threat, I’d deal with it and he’d do nothing for a couple turns. So I eventually played a mentor and killed him.
Game 2: Basically the same thing as game 1 except I v cliqued my opponent and saw 2 Blood moon in his hand and was super confused.
Round 3: Reanimator: 3-0
Game 1: He jams threats which I terminus away. My opponent was running shock lands which made his reanimates and Griselbrands awkward. Eventually I resolved Counterbalance and floated a 2 drop to lock him out of casting animate dead or exhume. He eventually scooped.
Game 2: He killed me turn 1 with counter magic backup.
Game 3: he goes for the turn 2(3?) reanimate on Griselbrand. I surgical Griselbrand and he casts Missdirection and targets his own Iona. I was confused but wasn’t complaining. I got to see that his hand was a copy of Surgical and Jace VP which was nice. I had a snapcaster and was planning on snap surgicalling griselbrand and it would have sucked if my opponent blew me out with a surgical of his own. Regardless, I countered the Reanimate and easily won the game from there with a balance floating Wear//Tear.
Round 4: Elves: 4-0
Game 1: I mull to 5 but it didn’t really matter because I just slammed counter top and my opponent stopped playing Magic the Gathering. Winning was largely trivial at that point.
Game 2: Basically the same as Game 1. My opponent never really got anything going and I was able to grind out his threats and eventually lock him out of the game with balance floating wear//tear.
Round 5: Rug Delver: 5-0
Game 1: I got pretty manascrewed and my opponent pretty much rolled my face.
Game 2: I cleared my opponents threats and eventually got Counter-Top online. Afterwards it was trivial to win with Mentor.
Game 3: My opponent mulled to 6 and accidentally drew 7 so I got to select a card to get shuffled into his deck. His hand was Tropical Island, Volcanic Island, Pyroblast, Delver, Delver, Jace TMS, Brainstorm. I shuffled the Jace back into his deck and proceeded to luck sack out of the game. My opponent overcommitted and I Miracled and Terminus. He then played a Nimble Mongoose which I blind flipped a terminus to deal with and slammed counterbalance locking him out of the game.
Round 6: ID with Noah Walker who ended up getting 6th
Round 6: ID with Tom Luckett who ended up taking down the event.
Quarterfinals: Noah Walker: 1-0 win
Unfortunately, Noah got a deck reg error and ended up getting a game loss. He kept a reasonable hand but wasn’t really able to get anything going. Threat wise I think he only found 2 delver and only one of them flipped. The rest of the game he flooded out.
Semifinals: Caleb Scherer: 1-2 lose
Game 1: Got turn 2’d
Game 2: I mull to a reasonable 6 card hand and proceed to draw Snapcaster Mage for the my first two draw steps. So naturally I just start slamming them into play to get a clock going. There was no way I was going to win if I tried to sandbag them for any kind of value so I just needed to pressure Caleb into going for it. He eventually had to mini Tendrils me for 10 life. Luckily I was able to draw my 3rd land and cast Vendilion Clique seeing Infernal Tutor, Past in Flames, Decay and Island. After mathing out his possible lines I took the Past in flames because it was the only thing that lead to me dying that turn. On his next draw step I casted the second Clique I had in hand, he’d decayed the first, and saw Island,Tutor and decay. I ended up taking nothing because I had previous knowledge of how Caleb approached the postboard games of this matchup. He also would have had to go off from a super low base meaning that the most likely line he takes is Decay Clique, play island and infernal Tutor for a second copy of Tendrils. From there he’d need to just draw a few arbitrary spells and try to Drill me out. He took the exact line that I thought he would and was promptly blown out by the Surgical that was in my hand.
Game 3: This game was interesting. To be honest, I think I played his game way too scared. Fatigue also started to set in a bit and I made a few misplays. The one that cost me the game was casting brainstorm in response to his Duress, and not hiding the Terminus that he’d seen earlier in the game from a Gitaxian Probe. At that point he took my Terminus and went for Empty the Warrens. I started to scramble to find a second terminus which I drew off of a ponder shuffle. Unfortunately I’d cut myself off of having an out by brainstorming away two lands. If I hadn’t I would have been able to float terminus on top, play a Top and terminus on Calebs turn. Though, he revealed to me that he had a Decay for my top so that line was cut off. I still could have played the previous turns in such a way that I live for at least two-five more turns. Oh well, you live and you learn.
DMC Autism Benefit Tourney
I ran back my 75 from the SCG Columbus Classic.The list feels fine for the most part.
Round 1: Rick: Eldrazi: 1-0
I wasn’t particularly happy to play against this deck in the first round. Game 1 has always felt atrocious and my win percentage in testing has been something like 40/60 or 50/50.
Game 1: I knew my opponent had access to both Grixis Delver and Eldrazi so I kept a hand of Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell, Counterspell, Councils Judgement + Lands because its reasonable against either deck. The only sketch part of this keep was that my opponent was on the play so arguably I should have mulliganed because counterspell can easily get outclassed on the draw. My opponent ended up mulling to 5 and I ultimately caught those tentacles. I probably could have won this game by being more aggressive with my removal. There was a point where I had the chance to Terminus away a single Eldrazi Mimic but I decided to be greedy ad hope to find a brainstorm so I could terminus away more threats later on. My opponent also found a Cavern of Souls so one of my Counterspells was functionally useless. He eventually cast an Eldrazi Mimic using Eye of Ugins cost reduction effect and I should have cashed in the second Counterspell there. I think I was saving it for a topdecked Chalice of the Void but should have cashed it in when I had the chance. The culmination of missing these plays put me in a spot where I was just super dead. If I had used my resources appropriately there is a very real chance that I’m able to find a Mentor and stabilize the game.
Game 2/3: The postboard games both played out the same. My opponent mulliganed a bit, I slammed Mentor and just dealt with his threats as they came down.
Round 2: Colin Glitsch: Shardless Bug: 1-1
Theres nothing really special about this match. My opponent played very well and never gave me an opening to really gain any traction. I also found myself stumbling on mana and eventually I just died to infinite two for ones.
Round 3: Rick: Legend Miracles: 2-1
Game 1: I knew my opponent was on miracles so I kept a hand with double Counterbalance. I slammed the turn two balance which promptly ate a Force of Will and then turn 3 I Jammed Balance + Top. The rest of the game was pretty trivial from there. I was able to get a Mentor online before my opponent could really get too much going. Luckily I saw multiple maindeck Cliques and a Venser so I was able to properly board.
Game 2: I just kind of awkwardly died this game. My opponent was able to deal with my counterbalance and beat me to death with Clique+ Snap while I floundered. Notably, He cast a Moat game 2 so that gave me more insight as to how he was approaching the mirror.
Game 3: My opponent was able to establish a Counterbalance before I was, but I was able to sneak my own counter top down. I then floated a 1 to keep my opponent from resolving a top of his own. Eventually I noticed that my opponent was forgetting to blind flip using his Balance which allowed me to gain more headway in the matchup. I used this window to resolve a redundant copy of Top which came in handy. As the game went my opponent started to remember his balance triggers, so I started flipping my redundant top and casting it to check the top card of my opponents deck. Eventually, my opponent flipped a Snapcaster mage which gave me the window to Pyroblast his Counterbalance and Predict away his Snapcaster Mage. Casting Predict was a bit risky because I didn’t have mana up to spin top in response to him potentially topdecking a counterbalance but I felt it was worth taking the chance because if I fade a draw step the game is basically over.
Round 4: Rick: Elves: 3-1
Game 1: I stumbled on mana in the early game so my opponent was able to get a lot of damage in relatively quickly. I was eventually able to cast a Terminus followed by a Counterbalance which in most cases would have been a hard lock . Unfortunately, my opponent had a Reclamation Sage in hand and was able to beat me to death from there.
Game 2: I did Miracles things.
Game 3: I did Miracles again. There was a cool point where my life total was pretty low and my opponent cracked a fetchland on my end step. In response I slammed a Containment Priest because I felt like he was going to tutor up a dryad arbor. My opponent paused for a good 10 seconds then begrudgingly grabbed a non Arbor Land. Winning the game from there was pretty trivial.
Round 5: Randy Lintz: Lands:4-1
Game 1: I start the game off by aggressively cantrippig for a Balance. I slammed a copy when I found it, and my opponent cast Crop Rotation in response which I Force of Willed. He then cast a second copy which I let resolve. I should have spun top in response to check for another copy of Force. My opponent fetched up the copy of Boseiju that I knew he had in his maindeck. From there the game a race and I closed things out with Mentor + Tops.
Game 2: My opponent cast Punishing Fire over and over from turn 2 until I died. He also like K Gripped a Balance or something and killed some Cliques and Snaps or whatever but that doesn’t matter. I go machine gunned from 20. Its hard out here on these streets.
Game 3: We started game 3 with not a lot of time left on the clock. Luckily I had a draw that consisted of two copies of Mentor and a Jace so I was able to kill my opponent before he every really got any traction,
Round 6: Keith: Elves:4-1-1
There was a clean top 8 cut so we all intentionally drew into the top 8. I had no interest in dream crushing to get a higher seed , and wanted food.
Quarter finals
Rug Delver: Adam Minnear: 1-2 Loss
Game 1: This game is heavily in my favor. I was able to clear his board and resolve counter+ top + jace to lock him out of the game. Eventually I just jammed Snapcaster Mages and attacked over the course of a few turns for lethal.
Game 2: The game was going well for a reasonable period. I eventually was able to resolve a Counterbalance which my opponent quickly blew up with a Destructive Revelry. The game was still seemingly fine….until my opponent cast Surgical Extraction targeting my Counterbalance. At that point I was on Mentor or bust. It turns out my opponent playing 4 Surgicals in his board.
Game 3: I kept a fine hand of Ponder, Ponder, Brainstorm, Top, Scalding Tarn, Swords, and something else I cant remember. It may have been a Froce of Will or Snapcaster. Regardless, I literally lost this game on turn 1. I lead the game off by playing a copy of Sensei’s Top which I usually don’t do when I keep 1 land Ponder hands. But apparently I love to do it in game 3’s vs Delver. The reason this is bad is because I needed to hit lands to cast my spells. Leading on Top is better if I draw a land but ponder almost ensures that I find a land. Odds wise, there are 19 lands left in my deck and 34 spells left in my deck. So with 15 more spells than lands left in my deck I’m odds wise to draw a land naturally every 2-3 draw steps. These odds are pretty garbage vs Delver. I’m quickly put in a position where if I untap, cast Ponder , and my opponent elects to Daze it then I’ve pretty much put myself horribly behind in tempo. For the record, my opponent Dazed the hel out of my Ponder timewalking me. The rest of the game consisted of me getting the hell kicked out of me while I struggled to hit land drops. I also never saw a white source so I basically didn’t interact with my opponent at all. I’m pretty sure that leading on Ponder turn 1 would have changed how tat game plays out completely. The first ponder would have resolved allowing me to see 4 cards after the shuffle. At which point Its likely that I find a land after the shuffle and draw step for turn. After casting the 1st ponder I doubt my opponent would have dazed the second one because it would have seemed like a bait spell. Regardless, my opponent played the match very well.
Contrats to everyone who made top 8 in the Modern and Legacy portions of the event.
Moving forward I’m cutting the 3rd wear//tear for either a 4th Snapcaster, 3rd Clique, Bonfire of the Damned, or something else.
Just a quick question, how many lands do you guy think should be in miracles for it to operate optimally?
I am playing a list without predict and running 20 lands and i think that it is okay in general. But it might be different facing delver-stifle strategies.
Any opinions on this?
4th Snapcaster for sure.
The purpose of any moat is to impede attack. Some are filled with water, some with thistles. Some are filled with things best left unseen.
The number of lands are highly dependent on your manacurve and also on how many basics lands your deck really need to operate.
If you dont have too much threat with cmc over 3, 20 lands are really nuts, but with threat with cmc 4 or greater, you should strongly consider playing 21 or 22 lands. It's also helpful to lands every turn against all taxes effects running around these days...
I dont run Jace, but the full 4 Mentors, I play with 20 lands and one basic mountain in SB because REB are key-counter on lot of blue-matchup, and lot of these run wasteland (and sometimes Stifle).
IT IS TWO AND A HALF MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
Big tournament in Japan over the weekend. 2 lists came in 1st and 4th.
Total Players:286
1st:
22 LANDS
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Karakas
2 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 CREATURES
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
23 INSTANTS and SORC.
4 Brainstorm
1 Council's Judgment
1 Counterspell
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Force of Will
3 Ponder
1 Pyroblast
1 Spell Snare
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
11 OTHER SPELLS
4 Counterbalance
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
SIDEBOARD
2 Back to Basics
1 Containment Priest
1 Counterspell
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
2 Monastery Mentor
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Rest in Peace
2 Wear / Tear
4th:
22 LANDS
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Karakas
2 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 CREATURES
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
23 INSTANTS and SORC.
4 Brainstorm
1 Council's Judgment
1 Counterspell
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Force of Will
3 Ponder
1 Pyroblast
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
12 OTHER SPELLS
4 Counterbalance
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
SIDEBOARD
1 Counterspell
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
1 From the Ashes
2 Monastery Mentor
1 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Wear / Tear
Interesting how similar these two lists are. They must be team mates?
Both on 2 Snap/ 2 Clique / 2 Entreat / 0 Predict.
Lists seem a bit oldschool.
I'm wondering about the 3 Tundra + 2 Volcanics with 2 Back to Basics in the board.
3 FoW & 3 Swords is also surprising. Around the last Japanese Legacy GP I remember talks about the local meta being very combo infested...
Anyway, the lists clearly worked for the pilots. Congratulations :)
I would be very interested to hear how the Ensnaring Bridge performed. It is a card I have been eyeing for a while. Seems to have less tension with Mentor than Moat does.
CMC=3 is both a blessing and a curse. Immunity to Abrupt Decay is attractive, but OTOH 2WW is difficult.
We never want that few cards in hand so Bridge is out.
The purpose of any moat is to impede attack. Some are filled with water, some with thistles. Some are filled with things best left unseen.
I don't particularly want to play Ensnaring bridge, but setting that aside, I definitely think that you can. I find myself frequently with two or fewer cards against creature decks, and often hell-bent.
If you have lots of cards in the mid game against creatures then you are probably ahead or dead.
Bridge is perfectly fine if you are on a Mentor build and can't play Moat. I played it in a 4 Menor list when there were a lot of Eldrazi around. It was solid, but lately I switched to the 4 Mentor / 2 Explosives Build. Once you can handle a Chalice consistently, I don't find the Bridge necessary. Especially since it's only good against Eldrazi, Lands, Sneak Show and random stuff like Merfolk.
Have any of you seen Blue Death and Taxes using Spell Queller?
Going to try the all-in Mentor/2 EE build. Seems like 5 of my last 8 matches at the LGS have been against lands or Eldrazi.
Lands has been particularly brutal matchup for me. Any tips?
Sandbagging fetch lands is particularly effective if you lose to Port (which is really what it boils down to (heh...)). Do your best to actually make your land drops and play out a second cb if you draw it, so the first krosan grip doesn't blow you out. Take out terminus and bring in graveyard hate, and be sure to play around a cycling land when trying to tag a LftL with a surgical extraction. Hope this helps!
The triplicate Cliques become instrumental in attempting to fight off any Boseiju shenanigans that Lands seems to be into these days, so that's another way to flex their usage.
I know opinions on Blood Moon are divided, but this is really a matchup, where it shines. (obviously).
The first "official" iteration of 4 Mentor / 2EE from thebrainstormshow had 2 Blood Moons in the SB. Not sure if they maintain that.
Edit: Keeping Explorations off the table is critical (I.e. burn a FoW without hesitation). Especially game 1, where you can't attempt to Surgically extract Loam. Also, game 1 the lock is pretty solid vs Loam.
Beware that they will try to tap down your white mana sources before going for the Combo.
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